To deport or not to deport? by CatholicVote
To deport or not to deport?
Catholics, Trump, and illegal immigration…
It’s the issue most likely to immediately divide the new Trump administration and our Church – at least with some bishops, the USCCB, Catholic charities, and some Catholic voters who believe enforcing the law is too harsh.
What can we expect?
First, some history…
Did you know Barack Obama deported over 3 million illegal immigrants during his first term? During his second term, Obama deported 2 million more – for a total of 5.2 million “removals” during his 8 years as President.
And did you know that Joe Biden deported more illegal migrants last year than any year of the Trump presidency?
Here’s another question…
Who said: “If they’ve committed a crime, deport them. They’re gone!”
Answer: Hillary Clinton.
This is not a gotcha game. Every president has deported illegal immigrants – sometimes by the millions – because they broke our laws, and the law prescribes a punishment for doing so. The Catechism of the Catholic Churchstates clearly that laws that regulate the conditions for migration are not, in principle, immoral and that migrants are obliged to obey these laws.
Donald Trump has every right to enforce our immigration laws, just as Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and every recent president has done.
You don’t need the Catechism to conclude that unfettered, indiscriminate immigration leads to chaos and exploitation. A just vetting process is necessary to ensure the safety of our country, and to protect both migrants and our own citizens. When a sovereign nation has allowed foreign criminals to enter its borders illegally, justice and compassion demands those criminals be expelled.
And that’s exactly what President Trump has promised to do.
President Trump’s new “Border Czar” nominee, Tom Homan, a lifelong Catholic, is not mincing words.
Homan has said President Trump will begin on day one with three priorities: 1) end illegal immigration by securing the border; 2) immediately begin deporting known criminals and terrorists that entered our country illegally, and 3) identify and find the 300,000+ childrenthat are "unaccounted" for inside our country – many of them believed to be victims of sex and drug traffickers.
President Trump has made clear: his administration will prioritize public safety and security threats – first.
FACT: There are over 600,000 foreign convicts illegally living in the United States today who came here illegally under the Biden-Harris administration. And there are 1.4 million immigrants who have already been ordered to be deported by immigration judges. Drug cartels and human traffickers are also top of the list for deportation. In 2024, agents in El Paso alone dismantled 244 “stash houses” for smuggled women and children in West Texas.
How many more have they not yet found?
We know left-wing media and progressives in our Church are preparing to frame the President and his plans as inhumane and unjust.
The opposite is true.
Donald Trump pledged to clean up Biden’s humanitarian catastrophe. And voters – including record numbers of Hispanic voters – delivered him a mandate in November.
This morning the New York Times reportedthat the surge in migration during the Biden presidency was the largest in American history. The story also confirms that about 60 percent of those that migrated over the past 4 years did so illegally, with millions of migrants falsely claiming asylum, exploiting loopholes, and sex and drug traffickers, coyotes and cartels profiting at their expense.
Our elected leaders have both the responsibility and moral mandate to end this madness immediately. And they should not apologize for doing so. The Biden administration created the problem and now Trump must fix it.
But “fixing” the problem is not simply about expelling illegal migrants. It’s also necessary to finally reform our entire broken immigration system so that we can welcome new citizens – on our terms – in an orderly, safe, and humane way.
The truth is, President Trump is not anti-immigrant. He is pro-American. And the problems at our border are not President Trump’s fault. They are the culmination of years of neglect and cowardice. And unless and until the border is secure and migrants who flaunt our laws are deported, the present crisis will continue – and likely get worse.
In his 2019 State of the Union address, President Trump said this: “Legal immigrants enrich our nation and strengthen our society in countless ways. I want people to come into our country in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come in legally.”
Remember this when the attacks begin accusing President Trump of being a racist xenophobe.
Just this last Sunday, Trump even signaledhis willingness to strike a deal for “Dreamers” – children of illegal migrants that have lived in our country for decades. But he also told the truth – Democrats have made it difficult for him to make any meaningful progress because they have opposed every substantive effort to secure the border and enforce our laws.
Brace yourselves.
The accusations are about to begin.
But the bottom line is this: nothing in Catholic social teaching requires that we acquiesce and surrender to the continued chaos and humanitarian crisis of the last 4 years. And no Catholic teaching prohibits the enforcement of just laws intended to protect the safety and security of our nation – and the orderly lawful process by which we welcome newcomers into our country.
Deportations are absolutely a moral issue.
We want to welcome more people to our great country.
We want more freedom-seekers to assimilate and become productive, law-abiding Americans.
It begins with ending the chaos, enforcing our laws, and restoring order.
Thankfully we will soon have a President willing to take up this challenge.